Press Release, 16.07.2025

Photo: Kirill Goncharov and Maxim Kruglov / Photo by the Yaboko Press Service

The State Duma Committee on State Building has approved amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences, proposing fines of up to 5,000 roubles for the search for extremist materials on the Internet and gaining access to them.

Co-author of the amendments, Senator Artem Sheykin, assured that the new changes to the Code of Administrative Offences do not involve surveillance of citizens, whilst the head of the “League for a Safe Internet” Ekaterina Mizulina lamented that she will no longer be able to report on people.

However, Moscow Yabloko leaders are not encouraged, in contrast to Sheykin and Mizulina.

Authorised representative of the Moscow branch of Yabloko Maxim Kruglov believes that new initiatives supporting censorship in our country open up possibilities for broad arbitrariness:

“It is quite possible to assume that now security forces will take complete control of citizens’ Internet activities, even simple information searches – for example, about books by ‘terrorist’ and ‘extremist’ [writer] Boris Akunin. It is also possible to assume that confiscating phones and laptops from any person will become everyday practice.

Censorship is intensifying, the country is isolating itself off from the rest of the world. We are following the path of our new ally, North Korea.”

Deputy Chairman of Moscow Yabloko Kirill Goncharov is amazed by the authorities’ contempt for their citizens, expressed in punishing people for searching for information and reading it:

“First you couldn’t repost. Now you won’t be able to search, you can’t read, you can’t learn, and you can’t speak.

The collision is that they will classify everything live and free as extremism. And I am sure that even the Forbes and RBC that function in the system quite well will eventually become such too. Any expert assessment that questions the professionalism in any field will be considered hostile.

Life in Russia will become harder, and this is not alarmism. Because the legislator won’t stop here – their appetite is already of such force that this is not a dessert, but still the first course.”